THIGHLAND

Thailand...finally! We had so much fun in Bali but just as we remembered from our trip before, Thailand is our favorite place. We arrived into Phuket on Sunday, the 28th and we are in our paradise. I'm working on eating my way through this country as the food is so amazing, something that was missing from Bali. The water at Phuket's beaches are so clear and pretty clean and the sand is great. Our new place is about a 10 minute walk from the beach but we once again have a scooter when we are too lazy to walk. We really like the location of our place as it is in the main area but on the far north side on the hill so it is quite quiet. We have an amazing rooftop pool that looks out over the city and the water. Below is a photo of a sunset from our pool.

Here is a photo from the first day we went to the beach in Patong.

One of the main things missing in Bali was the great food and we have definitely found that here in Phuket. Everything is so fresh and is made right in front of you. We primarily eat out of food carts and outdoor "restaurants". Everything we have read says it is safer on your stomach to eat here because it is so fresh and the Westernized places are the ones where you can end up getting sick. Either way, our stomachs have been just fine thus far. Also, we have not spent more than $7 combined on a meal since we have been here. We have become regulars at two separate places already as the food has been phenomenal. One is this restaurant about 10 minutes walking from our house. It is a restaurant ran by a family. The mom cooks and smiles at us saying Khob Khun Ka (thank you) numerous times throughout our meal. Her son and daughter wait the tables and translate everything to the mom. They are all so nice and you can tell they genuinely appreciate us coming in there so often. We have now switched over to the locals pricing which is so ridiculously cheap it's almost sad. We leave a tip each time and they cannot believe it. Here's a photo of this place:

The 2nd place that we have frequented about 3 times already is a night food market in front of the Banzaan Fresh Market (fruit and meat market during the day where we get our fruit). This place has about 100 different food stalls ranging from stick food to fruit shakes to items we have no idea what they are. I had Pad Thai at 3 other places before finding this market and I'm not sure if I will have it elsewhere. This lady below makes the best Pad Thai that is to die for.

Here is a photo of so skewers that are really good. They have beef, chicken and pork and have vegetables and pineapple on them.

Photo looking down one of the rows at the night food market.

As a joke we only took 100 Baht ($3.30) each to the market one night and we both had more food than we could finish and we each still came back with money. As everyone knows, there is some pretty interesting stuff in Asian markets. This market definitely has those but we steer clear of them. A lot of times we will look at them an have no clue even what they are. Here are some examples:

Here is another place that is right by our house that makes fruit shakes. They are very simple and tasty as the fruit is so fresh. We usually grab a fruit shake each morning on our way out. They are 30 Baht each ($1).

Alright, writing about all of this food makes me hungry. We are headed out to get some food now!

Until next time!

-Drew